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Editorial

Wanted: big ideas for city’s future

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Friday March 22, 2013 5:22 AM

Where better to pursue a really big idea, one that might sound impossible at first, than in Columbus — a city named for a bold adventurer?

Of course, things didn’t work out as Christopher Columbus had intended; he was looking for a trade route to Asia and stumbled upon the New World. But that’s the thing about big ideas: Sometimes they lead to an unexpected and exciting destination.

This is the idea behind the CBUS Ideabook Project, on display through April 30 at the Center for Architecture and Design, in Suite 100 of the Lazarus building at 10 W. Town St. Downtown.

Local architects, designers and others were asked to dream about what this city might look like in the future, then sketch, write or create a collage of their ideas in booklets. Practicality wasn’t a requirement. Organizers wanted inspiration. They wanted people to talk about design and about how it impacts the quality of life in a city.

“The hope,” said architect Michael Bongiorno, “is it will cause people to look around at the city with love and want to make it a better place to live in.”

Ideas submitted don’t skimp on imagination.

Restaurant entrepreneur Liz Lessner and her husband, Harold LaRue, suggested a zip line to ferry folks from the LeVeque Tower across the river to COSI, a skyride between Mound Street and Goodale Park and tubing on the Scioto.

Others want trolleys, trains and monorails on or above the streets of Columbus. Goodale Park would expand across I-670 to the river. There would be more public art, parks, festivals, community gardens and farmers markets.

Mike Beaumont and Thomas Winningham mapped out intricate mass-transit maps for Columbus and its suburbs, as if the city had a Chicago-style train system.

“It’s kind of wishful thinking,” said Beaumont of Spacejunk Media. “Gee whiz, what if this city got a real mass-transportation system going?”

He answered his own question: It would attract and retain young professionals.

One of the most-creative, and oddly practical, ideas came from Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman. Like previous mayors, he always is looking to give the city a more-dynamic vibe. Legendary Mayor M.E. Sensenbrenner called this energy and ambition spizzerinctum and envisioned Columbus as a big city.

There must be something to this spizzerinctum.

Coleman imagines superheroes — or rather, their huge 3D likenesses — scaling Downtown buildings. What if, he asked, King Kong was holding onto the top of the LeVeque Tower?

“That would be so cool,” Coleman said. And what if Captain America straddled the roof of City Hall and Spider Man scaled the Huntington Building?

Coleman, however, is not just thinking Green Lantern; he’s thinking “greenbacks.”

Coleman sees Columbus hosting an annual comic-book convention which would draw thousands of visitors and inject millions into the local economy. Affixing the superheroes to buildings would get people talking.

Which is the goal of the CBUS Ideabook Project.

“Even if some of the ideas aren’t doable,” Coleman said “they may generate that idea for something that is doable.”